This Former NASA Engineer Started a Small Business in Our Incubator, and Now His Clients Include Subway and Burger King

One of the things we’re proudest of here at the EDC incubator is the diversity of our tenants. We have scientists, musicians, manufacturers, inventors, insurance companies—literally, in our 20-plus years of existence, we’ve had just about every type of company representing just about every industry you can think of.

Founder Dave Jones has engineering in his blood—his father and brother are engineers, and Dave began his career working for NASA.

That’s right.

NASA.

When you begin your career as a rocket scientist (or at least an engineer working with rocket scientists), it’s a pretty good bet your engineering consulting firm will see some success. And since its incorporation, Dave Engineering has boomed. The company joined the EDC in May of 2013, and over the past few years they’ve grown to 11 employees and two interns.

In addition to its growth, the company has worked on some pretty amazing projects.

The oven the folks behind the counter at Subway use to toast your sandwiches?

Dave Engineering played a role in developing that.

The broiler Burger King uses to chargrill your Whopper?

Dave Engineering played a role in developing that, too.

That automated firehose a firefighter is using to extinguish the fire at your burning home?

Thanks, Dave.

That chamber in the plane used to quarantine the guy who starts exhibiting signs of the Black Plague halfway through your flight from Paris to New York?

Humanity survives because of Dave Engineering. Okay, that may be a stretch but you get the point.

Hopefully you’ll never need those last two, but Dave Engineering really does work on everything from Subway’s oven to a special chamber designed to quarantine infected travelers on an airplane.

It’s important work.

If you’re paying $6 for a turkey sandwich, it better be toasted. This is still America, after all.

(The automated, iPad-controlled firetruck and the Black Plague/Ebola/Some Terrifying Disease We Don’t Yet Know About Containment Unit are also pretty important.)

Seriously though, we are incredibly proud to have had Dave Engineering in our incubator. The company recently graduated and moved into a 12,000-square foot space, providing the company the room it needs to grow. Given that its income has increased by at least 35% in each of the last five years, it’s a pretty good bet the company will need more space before too long.

In fact, the company plans on purchasing a building of its own in the next 12 to 18 months.

Dave Engineering is the product of a family legacy, and we’re proud it’s part of another legacy: one where entrepreneurs can use the resources, talent, and low cost-of-living offered here in St. Charles County to a create a company that does some really cool things.

Since its inception in 1990, EDC Business and Community Partners has earned a reputation as “the business growth experts.” Now with more than 25 years of successful experience serving the business community, EDC core services include: